The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) (Russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН)Rossíiskaya akadémiya naúk) consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such as libraries, publishing units, and hospitals.

Headquartered in Moscow, the Academy (RAS) is considered a civil, self-governed, non-commercial organization[2] chartered by the Government of Russia. It combines the members of RAS (see below) and scientists employed by institutions.

The Academy currently includes around 500 institutions and 55 thousand scientific researchers.

There are three types of membership in the RAS: full members (academicians), corresponding members, and foreign members. Academicians and corresponding members must be citizens of the Russian Federation when elected. However, some academicians and corresponding members were elected before the collapse of the USSR and are now citizens of other countries. Members of RAS are elected based on their scientific contributions – election to membership is considered very prestigious.[3] As of 2005–2007 there are just under 500 full members in the academy and a similar number of corresponding members.

The RAS consists of 11 specialized scientific divisions, three territorial divisions, sometimes called branches, and 14 regional scientific centers. The Academy has numerous councils, committees, and commissions, all organized for different purposes.[4]

The Ural Division was established in 1932, with Aleksandr Fersman as its founding chairman. Research centers are in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Cheliabinsk, Izhevsk, Orenburg, Ufa and Syktyvkar. As of 2007, the Division employed 3,600 scientists, 590 full professors, 31 full members, and 58 corresponding members of the Academy.

Member institutions are linked via a dedicated Russian Space Science Internet (RSSI). Started with just three members, The RSSI now has 3,100 members, including 57 from the largest research institutions.

From 1933 to 1992, the main scientific journal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences was the Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR); after 1992, it became simply Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences (Doklady Akademii Nauk).

The Academy was founded in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, inspired and advised by Gottfried Leibniz, and implemented in the Senate decree of February 8 (January 28 old style), 1724.[2][9] It was originally called The Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (Russian: Петербургская Академия наук). The name varied over the years, becoming The Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts (Императорская Академия наук и художеств; 1747–1803), The Imperial Academy of Sciences (Императорская Академия Наук; 1803— 1836), and finally, The Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences (Императорская Санкт-Петербургская Академия Наук, from 1836 and until the end of the empire in 1917).

A separate organization, called the Russian Academy (Академия Российская), was created in 1783 to work on the study of the Russian language. Presided over by Princess Yekaterina Dashkova (who at the same time was the Director of the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences, i.e., the country's "main" academy), the Russian Academy was engaged in compiling the six-volume Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language (1789–1794). The Russian Academy was merged into the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1841.

In December 1917, Sergey Fedorovich Oldenburg, a leading ethnographer and political activist in the Kadet party, met with Vladimir Lenin to discuss the future of the Academy. They agreed that the expertise of the Academy would be applied to addressing questions of state construction, while in return the Soviet regime would give the Academy financial and political support. By the early 1918 it was agreed that the Academy would report to the Department of the Mobilisation of Scientific Forces of the People's Commissariat for Education which replaced the Provisional Government's Ministry of Education. In 1925 the Soviet government recognized the Russian Academy of Sciences as the "highest all-Union scientific institution" and renamed it the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

However from 1928 on the Politburo interfered in the affairs of the Academy. By the summer of 1929, Yuri Petrovich Figatner headed a special government commission that had to inspect the Academy and purge it of "counter-revolutionaries," turning it into a Stalinist organization. Figatner's commission originally included Sergey Oldenburg, but he was sacked for "obstructing the reconstruction of the Academy of Sciences". By the end of 1929, 128 members of staff out of 960 were fired, with a further 520 supernumeraries from 830 also dismissed. In the following year over 100 people (mainly scholars and humanists, including many historians) were charged in what is called the Academicians' Case. Former Academicians such as G.S. Gabaev, A.A. Arnoldi, Nikolai Antsiferov, had already been exiled or imprisoned, but were also put on trial. On August 8, 1931 the Board of the Joint State Political Administration Board condemned 29 people, including:

In 1934 the Academy headquarters moved from Leningrad (formerly Saint Petersburg) to the Russian capital, Moscow, together with a number of academic institutes.

At the end of and first year after World War II the Academy consisted of eight divisions (Physico-Mathematical Science, Chemical Sciences, Geological-Geographical Sciences, Biological Science, Technical Science, History and Philosophy, Economics and Law, Literature and Languages); three committees (one for coordinating the scientific work of the Academies of the Republics, one for scientific and technical propaganda, and one for editorial and publications), two commissions (for publishing popular scientific literature, and for museums and archives), a laboratory for scientific photography and cinematography and Academy of Science Press departments external to the divisions; 7 branches (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Urals, and West Siberian), and 8 undependent Academies in Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Latvia, and Estonia.[13]

The Academy of Sciences of the USSR helped to establish national Academies of Sciences in all Soviet republics (with the exception of the Russian SFSR), in many cases delegating prominent scientists to live and work in other republics. In the case of the Ukraine, its academy was formed by the local Ukrainian scientists and prior to the occupation of the Ukrainian People's Republic by Bolsheviks. These academies were:

On June 28, 2013, the Russian Government unexpectedly announced a draft law of dissolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) founded in 1724 and establishing a new "public-governmental" organization with the same name. During this reform, all buildings and other property of the Academy will be taken away under control of a government-appointed official.[14] The reform is allegedly authored by Mikhail Kovalchuk, brother of Yury Kovalchuk, known as Vladimir Putin's personal banker.[15] Mikhail Kovalchuk was repeatedly rejected during elections to the Academy.[16] Simultaneously, a new law regulating the status of the new organization was submitted for approval by the Russian Duma (the Parliament of the Russian Federation) and was submitted for approval the following week. After the acceptance of this law, a liquidation process of the Academy should be completed within three months.

The law puts severe restrictions on the autonomy of academic institutions in Russia and deprives RAS of the control over all of its material assets. All the existing institutions of RAS are offered to move away from the new organization, to subordinate them to a special administrative Government agency, "Agency of Scientific Institutions", and to subject them to a selection compliant with certain conditions defined solely by this agency. The functions of this agency are not well-specified in the law.[17]

The draft law, which fundamentally changes the system of science organization in Russia, has been prepared and examined without discussion within the scientific community. Even the public structures created by the Ministry of Education and Science for consultations with the representatives of the scientific community have not been involved in a discussion of the draft law and have not been informed on its existence. The Academy has also not been informed on the existence of the project.

This piece of legislation, accompanied by the unusual haste with which it was announced and put through the first stage of approval (described by some as "Blitzkrieg"), created a considerable worry in the academic community and a strong rejection by many leading Russian and foreign scientists.[18]

A large group of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced their intention not to enter into a new academy after the reform.[19]

Many world's leading scientists (including Pierre Deligne, Michael Atiyah, Mumford, and others) have written open letters which referred to the planned reform of the "shocking" and even "criminal".[20]

Presidents of the Saint Petersburg, USSR, and Russian Academies of Sciences[edit]

The following persons occupied the position of the Academy's President (or, sometimes, Director):[21][22]

^A very negative experience of such a selection made by Government officials was demonstrated last fall during monitoring of the educational institutions in Russia. Many popular and highly reputed universities have been declared "ineffective" according to the rules that in fact have little to do with assessing real scientific level.